What’s Driving Xi’s Anti-Corruption Drive?

Over the last several years, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on corruption has swept up dozens of senior officers in the Chinese military. The most serious charges relate to these officiers essentially selling promotions. Numerous cases of bribery to gain advanced positions have been prosecuted. Chinese generals have enriched themselves with the equivalent of often millions of U.S. dollars by taking money to mete out another step up the ladder for those below them.

Fang Fenghui held the exalted post of chief of Joint Staff, and was a member of the Central Military Commission. He was found guilty of corruption and in 2019 was sentenced to life in prison.

In 2016, a former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, Guo Boxiong, was convicted of accepting bribes. He, too, went to prison for life.

Xu Caihou was a Chinese general and also a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission. Xu escaped what would surely have been a life sentence when he died from bladder cancer while under investigation for corruption.

Corruption is not so much the life blood of Chinese society as the dark matter that binds it together. It fills the vacuum left by the absence of a strong and independent legal system.

Corruption and guanxi are often mistakenly confused. Guanxi, usually translated as “relationships,” is better understood as a closed system of networking by which people gain and give help and favors. But the powerful ties of that system aren’t always corrupt. In fact, guanxi can often work to prevent corruption, by giving people a chance to repay an honest favor by doing a legitimate one in return. Guanxi may rely upon mutual obligation, but that doesn't mean it relies upon corrupt behavior.

The corruption of Chinese officialdom goes much farther in its impact on Chinese society. It is a deep and complex system of social debts, which ties everyone who submits to its temptations into a nearly inextricable web of lifetime commitments. Those bonds are held fast by a principle of mutually-assured destruction should any stakeholder attempt to either opt out or spill the beans. With people locked into a maze of compromised relationships that spell disaster should they see the light of day, stakeholders are equally strapped into a never-ending cover-up of their lives and activities.

This not only undermines an individual’s ability and effectiveness in the performance of their job, but also shatters the professionalism of the institutions in which corrupt officials work.

Ultimately, therefore, China’s institutions – including its vast military machine – are compromised from within when critical command positions are bought rather than attained through merit.

The length and extent of Xi's anti-corruption campaign is proof in itself of the depth of corruption in the top ranks of the Chinese military. Xi is seen by many as China’s most powerful leader since Mao. He has been in office for nearly nine years, and most observers expect him to rule for at least another six. Yet as tightly as Xi holds the reins of power in China, the chicanery being rooted out is so deeply embedded into the system that even the might of a determined leader willing to use draconian measures cannot quickly get to the bottom of it.

Nonetheless, Xi’s multiple drives against corruption, not just in the military, but in the Chinese Communist Party and among entrepreneurs as well, have also spawned the use of the Chinese media to reveal to the public the names and deeds of the disgraced. In a twist on transparency, an autocratic leader has actually scored a win for media freedom, albeit a tightly controlled and measured one. Once the signal from the top comes down that a certain figure is fair game, a flood of media reports uncover the unsavory details of the disgraced’s life and crimes.

No longer kept quiet or secret, the details of China’s prosecutions and convictions are spread throughout the media for all to see and hear. The Chinese public loves a salacious scandal as much as any society does – more in some instances – and the effect of covering the corruption cases openly not only satisfies that very human desire to see the mighty fall, but it also presents Xi as a strong leader fulfilling his promises to the public to tackle the evils of society. Of course, open coverage also serves as a warning to other officials: them today, you tomorrow.

Not only are graft cases openly reported in the official media, but the anti-corruption drive has served as a theme for a popular television series in China.

In 2017, a 56-episode series, based on the novel “In the Name of the People” by author Zhou Meisen, began broadcasting on Hunan TV and its streaming sites. Zhou, himself a former municipal official in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, wrote the novel casting his villain as a high-level state official. Chinese media referred to this as “groundbreaking.”

The novel and the TV series depict a case of corruption that comes out as a result of disputes in a fictional factory, in an equally fictional province. The state-run China Daily reported that “dramatic productions dealing with corruption dropped off the screen starting in 2004 with a change in government policies.”

Under Xi, this genre has been revived.

Of course, there is speculation and cynicism that Xi’s moves against CCP members from top to bottom – including extraordinarily senior military officials – are simply maneuvers to consolidate his own power. Dirty tricks and back-stabbing in politics have been around for thousands of years and are certainly not limited to modern China. But ascribing Xi’s approval to investigate and arrest corruption to purely political motives is perhaps too convenient and too easy of an analysis.

What is the explanation of Xi’s focus on rooting out corruption in the Communist Party and the military? Is there an ulterior motive or is it a true ideological bent that drives him?

Indeed, Xi, politically and ideologically, is a reactionary, in the most faithful sense of the word. As such, he favors returning to the political status quo of a former time, believing that the previous system and its standards represent a better model for contemporary society to adopt. Despite the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, through which both he and his father suffered, Xi openly defends the principles of communism as it was practiced in the early years of the People's Republic, and clearly denounces the idea of democracy, at least for China. At least he is not a hypocrite.

Even the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Xi's master plan for developing the infrastructure of the developing world – and beyond – and tying it all back to China, is a hearkening back to the past glories and successes of the ancient Silk Road.

Ultimately, then, Xi Jinping is puritanical. Driving out corruption – cleaning house – is an unsurprising consequence of that characteristic.